Exploring the relationship between posttraumatic growth, cognitive processing, psychological distress, and social constraints in a sample of breast cancer patients.

Posttraumatic growth (the perception of positive life changes after an encounter with a trauma) often occurs among breast cancer patients and can be influenced by certain demographic, medical, and psychosocial parameters. Social constraints on disclosure (the deprivation of the opportunity to express feelings and thoughts regarding the trauma) and the cognitive processing of the disease seem to be involved in the development of posttraumatic growth. Through the present study the authors aim to: investigate the levels of posttraumatic growth in a sample of 202 women with breast cancer in Greece, explore the relationships between posttraumatic growth and particular demographic, medical, and psychosocial variables according to a proposed model, and test the role of social constraints in the relationship between automatic and deliberate cognitive processing of the trauma. The results showed that posttraumatic growth was evident in the majority of the sample and was associated inversely with age at diagnosis (ß = -0.174, p < .05) and psychological distress (ß = -0.394, p = .001), directly with time since diagnosis (ß = 0.181, p < .05), and indirectly with intrusions and psychological distress, through reflective rumination (ß = 0.323, p = .001). Social constraints were found to moderate the relationship between intrusions and reflective rumination. Implications of the results and suggestions for future research and practice are outlined.

Episodic Visual Learning/Memory and Attentional Flexibility in Patients With Major Depressive Disorder After Clinically Effective Electroconvulsive Therapy.

OBJECTIVES: This study is a follow-up of a previous one reporting that the neuropsychological profile of pharmacoresistant patients with major depressive disorder referred for electroconvulsive therapy (ECT, ECT group) contrasted with that of their pharmacorespondent counterparts (NECT group). The NECT group exhibited severe visuospatial memory and minor executive deficits; the ECT group presented the reverse pattern. In that same ECT group, the current follow-up study examined the effects of clinically effective ECT on both cognitive domains 2 months later. METHODS: Fifteen ECT patients were administered Hamilton Depression (HAMD-24), Hamilton Anxiety (HAMA), Mini-Mental State Examination Scales and 5 tests of Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery at intake (pre-ECT), end of ECT course (post-ECT), and 2 months thereafter (follow-up). RESULTS: Electroconvulsive therapy was effective in relieving clinical depression. After a post-ECT decline, the patients exhibited significant improvement in both Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery, paired associate learning, and Stockings of Cambridge. By contrast, their major pre-ECT deficit in intra/extradimensional set shifting remained virtually unaffected. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that attentional flexibility deficits may constitute a neuropsychological trait-like feature of pharmacoresistant, ECT-referred major depressive disorder patients. However, this deficit does not seem generalized, given patient improvement in episodic visual learning/memory and some indication of improvement in spatial planning after ECT.

Correction: Professional Development of Behavior Analysts in Europe: A Snapshot for 21 Countries.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1007/s40617-022-00754-0.].

Professional Development of Behavior Analysts in Europe: A Snapshot for 21 Countries.

Behavior analysts are not recognized or regulated as a distinct profession in Europe. For the most part, European behavior analysts adhered to the standards set by the U.S.-based Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB). However, the BACB certification has not been recognized officially in any European jurisdiction. The recent decision by the BACB to discontinue eligibility of non-U.S. residents to apply for the BCBA exam by the end of 2022 has brought the issue of professional regulation outside of the United States into sharp focus. This article offers a snapshot in time of professional recognition of behavior analysts in 21 European countries. It stems from the Erasmus+ funded EuroBA project and its Professional Advisory Group (PAG). The EuroBA project aims to develop common standards and competences for behavior analysts to facilitate national regulation and mutual recognition across Europe.

Psychological distress following wildfires disaster in a rural part of Greece: a case-control population-based study.

Psychological distress is common in the aftermath of a disaster. This study investigated psychological distress and morbidity in individuals who had experienced severe exposure to a wildfire disaster in a part of Greece. The study was a cross sectional case control of an adult population (18-65 years old). Face to face interviews were used in the collection of the data which were demographics, the type and number of losses and the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised for assessment of psychological symptoms. The results showed that those exposed to wildfires disaster scored significantly higher on the symptoms of somatization, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, and paranoia; had significantly more symptoms of psychopathology and were more distressed, compared to controls. Risk factors for potential psychiatric cases were those exposed to disaster; those who had lower education, and those who were widowed. It was concluded that wildfires may cause considerable psychological symptoms comparable to other disasters and there are reasons to create services to help and improve the mental health of those affected.

Locus of control and psychopathology in relation to levels of trauma and loss: self-reports of Peloponnesian wildfire survivors.

This study investigated whether relations between beliefs about the personal controllability of reinforcing events and levels of psychopathology were differentiated with respect to levels of trauma and loss experienced in a series of devastating wildfires. In contrast with studies of combat veterans and professional firefighters, in wildfire survivors external locus of control beliefs and psychopathology were correlated only in respondents who experienced higher levels of trauma and loss; specifically, for residents of designated disaster areas (N = 409), but not for a demographically matched sample of residents of adjacent, non-fire-damaged areas (N = 391). The conflicting findings across studies are interpreted with respect to probable differences in contingencies of reinforcement for causal attributions in professionals and in novices in disaster management.

Transitivity as Skinnerian problem solving controlled by self-constructed relational stimuli.

In tests of the derivation of complex relations such as transitivity, extant cues might fail to evoke effective responding, necessitating the construction of supplemental stimuli prior to their solution. The significance of this process was investigated by within-subject manipulation of an instructional variable designed to produce different levels of construction of supplemental stimulation concerning relationships among stimulus elements of concatenated conditional discriminations. In two experimental sessions, serial training of three 5-member stimulus classes occurred, either with the instruction to simply name the component stimuli or to both name them and generate a tale serially linking the stimuli named; such constructed stimuli might be spontaneously reconstructed by precurrent acts in subsequent tests of "emergent" relations. Participants whose supplemental stimulus construction at the first session was limited to name-giving derived significantly more relations when, in training at session two, they generated tales linking stimulus elements; this same near-errorless derivation was obtained at the first session whenever relational stimuli beyond bidirectional naming were constructed. In some cases the uninstructed construction of supplementary relational stimuli occurred at the first session, to equivalent effect; such construction might constitute a typically unobserved component of the derivation of relations among stimulus elements entailed in multiple conditional discriminations.

Structure, developmental course, and correlates of children's anxiety disorder-related behavior in a Hellenic community sample.

The generality of the DSM-IV diagnostic structure for children's anxiety disorders, as measured by the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS) was investigated with a Greek-language version of the scale. An exploratory factor analysis produced a six-factor solution in general accord with the DSM-IV-based theoretical structure of responding. However, a generalized anxiety factor incorporated three unexpected items interpreted as representing excessive worry, including two items intended to measure obsessions, raising the question of children's ability to discriminate the intrusiveness of vexatious cognition. Anxiety scores were negatively correlated with school adjustment and performance, and decreased with age, with the exception of social phobia scores, which increased. Anxiety scores were substantially higher than those observed in most cultures, particularly on social phobia and compulsive behavior subscales. Hellenic children might regard compulsive behaviors as more socially acceptable than other anxiety disorder-related behaviors, whereas higher overall anxiety scores appear to be related to socio-economic circumstances.

Normative development of fears in Greece: self-reports on the Hellenic Fear Survey Schedule for Children.

This study assessed the psychometric properties of self-reports on the Hellenic Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSSC-GR), a Greek-language version of Ollendick's FSSC-R [Behav. Res. Ther. 21 (1983) 685-692], and explored the factor structure, intensity, prevalence, and content of fears of Hellenic children aged 7-12 years. Internal consistency and temporal stability assessments of responding on the FSSC-GR were comparable to those obtained on the FSSC-R. A seven-factor solution provided the best conceptual fit for the structure of children's fears in Greece, including five components similar to factors previously obtained for the FSSC-R, plus two unique components, "Travel and Agoraphobic Fears" and "School Performance Fears." Fear intensity and prevalence scores of Hellenic children were higher than scores observed in most countries. Self-reported fear scores were higher for Hellenic girls than for boys. The relation between age and self-reported fears in Greece was complex and interpreted in relation to age-related changes in environmental demands.

Parental educational practices in relation to children's anxiety disorder-related behavior.

Schoolchildren reported their parents' use of aversive control and positive reinforcement contingencies in their educational interventions, as well as parental non-responsiveness to their requests for educational assistance. They also reported their own levels of six dimensions of anxiety disorder-related phenomena. Both parental use of aversive control and non-responsiveness were directly related to overall levels of child anxiety disorder-related behavior; these correlations were more robust than those observed in previous investigations of more diffuse dimensions of parenting style and trait anxiety. Panic disorder/agoraphobia and Generalized anxiety disorder were the dimensions most strongly correlated with both parental aversive control and non-responsiveness, while Compulsive behavior was uniquely uncorrelated with parental non-responsiveness and uniquely correlated with parental use of positive reinforcement contingencies. Differences in the magnitudes of correlations between anxiety disorder-related dimensions and parental educational practices are interpreted in terms of the probable differential effectiveness of their constituent behaviors in terminating parent-mediated negative reinforcers.

Superstitious perception: response-independent reinforcement and punishment as determinants of recurring eccentric interpretations.

This study provided controlled observations of a potential mechanism for the determination of the repetitive, aberrant perceptions or interpretations of everyday events that figure prominently in a range of psychological disorders: the adventitious reinforcement of acts of cognition by the actual consequences of concurrent motor acts. Adults made a series of two-choice brightness discriminations; on 60% of trials, choosing the brighter stimulus produced a "correct" signal while errors produced an aversive sound. On 40% of trials, the choice stimuli did not in fact differ in brightness; the consequences of responding on these "identical stimuli" trials differed across blocks of trials. Thus, on these trials perceptual judgments were directly followed by events that they did not produce. When all choices on identical stimuli trials were punished with the "error" sound, subjects showed little preference for the left-side or right-side identical stimuli, but when all choices of identical stimuli were reinforced with the "correct" light, individual preferences for the left-side or the right-side stimuli substantially increased. As the consequences of responding on identical stimuli trials were independent of the stimuli chosen, these findings provide evidence for superstitious perception, the reinforcement of perceptual acts by events that do not depend upon their occurrence.

Identification of recycled water with an empirically derived symbol increases its probability of use.

The experiment described in this paper compared the effects of two systems for labeling recycled water on potential consumers' intention to use this resource; the current identifying symbol used worldwide (purple color for pipes, containers, and tanks) and a new, empirically derived and validated set of symbols that provide specific information on water quality and positive comparative information. In total, 807 face-to-face surveys were carried out. Subjects were asked to rate their intentions for using different qualities of recycled water for commercial agriculture as well as for using products and facilities irrigated with recycled water, either in the presence of the established symbol or the new, empirically derived symbols. Potential consumers' self-reported intentions to use recycled water were reliably higher in the presence of empirically derived symbols with positive comparative information than in the presence of the conventional identification symbol. This program of research provides a model for the application of principles of behavioral psychology to enhance the consumer acceptance of technological advances that preserve natural resources and protect ecosystems.